Marion Wright Edelman, tireless advocate for children and families, graduated from Spelman College and Yale Law School. She was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, and directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund office in Jackson, Miss. She was counsel for the Poor People's Campaign in 1968, and founded the Washington Research Project, the parent body of the Children's Defense Fund, which began in 1973.

She has received many honorary degrees, including one from Colorado College in 1999. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings, including, "Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change."